Author: Luis Ortiz

Choir Rehearsal…

I have the privilege to sing in my church’s choir, Cor Jesu. Our director, Dr. Crista Miller occasionally encourages us to “make mistakes out loud”.

My natural instinct is to want to do the exact opposite, sing very softly or not at all so I don’t mess it up. However, how can Dr. Miller help me or the rest of the choir fix something if we don’t make mistakes out loud? (more…)

A big change…

As I prepared to write my first blog about leadership development I wondered, how did I get started down this path? Of course that as children our parents play an important role in our initial formation. However, at some point as we grow, and hopefully mature, leadership development is a personal decision.

Right out of college, I moved from Puerto Rico to Houston Texas for my first job as a young engineer. Since my original goal was to be an astronaut, I was very excited about a job to work on Space Shuttle Software applications. To be honest, I was more scared than excited. God saw fit that my first officemate was to be Ms. Fay Linda Moore.

Who was she?

Fay (never ending with an E!) had a presence that conveyed friendliness, confidence, high standards and a do-not-mess-with-me vibe all mixed into one heck of a first impression. Little did I know that on that day I would meet my first leadership mentor without even knowing what a mentor was or did. That day also marked the beginning to one of those friendships of a lifetime.

Fay also happened to be the team lead for our group. She ran a tight ship and as such she was passionate about documentation, continuous improvement, a job well done and giving praise when praise was due. Anyone who ever worked with her quickly learned that the job would be completed with a high standard of quality and it would many times go beyond what was required to ensure nothing was missed (complete staff work as she called it).